Touch Base
by frostygossamer
Summary: Once in a while Dean called Sam at Stanford to 'touch base'. Warning: Telephonic impropriety. Pre-series Wincest one-shot.


Summary: Once in a while Dean called Sam at Stanford to 'touch base'. Warning: Telephonic impropriety. Pre-series Wincest one-shot.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, its fandom, its characters or anything connected to them. I do not make money or profit in any way from this story.

* * *

Touch Base by frostygossamer

* * *

Sam was happy living in Palo Alto with his girlfriend and soon to be fiancée Jessica. It had taken him a while to settle down, meeting Jess had been a big part of that. For the first few weeks after he had arrived at Stanford, he had missed his family terribly. John, of course, even though in the prior months they had done little but argue, but particularly Dean, his big brother, his best friend and, to be honest, his surrogate mother.

How could Sam NOT have missed them. For the longest time they had been all he had. Then he had met Jess and, voila, he had someone again, someone who cared, someone who seemed like home. He felt privileged. John had known that feeling once, Dean never had.

Sam hadn't seen his brother in almost three years. But he had heard from him.

It was just after midnight, at the quiet junction of Wednesday and Thursday. Sam and Jess had rolled into bed a half hour before.

"Remember I'll be getting home late tomorrow, Sam," Jess had said, as she tucked herself under the comforter and cuddled up against his side. "I'm going to Becca's mom's. She wants me to help her bake cookies as a surprise for Becca's birthday."

"Yeah, sure," he had responded sleepily. "Becca's sixteenth. I remember."

Sam was just glad he wasn't expected to go along. Becca's folks knew how to party, but he still wasn't used to big, noisy family gatherings like theirs.

Yep, family gatherings Winchester-style had involved a couple bottles of whiskey and maybe a bag of chips, not birthday cake covered with candles and cookies frosted with the birthday kid's name. Just the three of them.

Jess had fallen right to sleep in her boyfriend's arms, and silence soon reigned in their bedroom. Sam was drifting slowly into dreamland himself.

Then his cell rang.

~ 'Touching base', that was what they called it. It had started one night when Dean had drunk-dialled him out of the blue. Sam hadn't heard his brother's voice in over a year and it felt like finding sweet water in the desert. But soon Dean's tipsy babbling had morphed into dirty talk, as his whiskey-soaked mind had wandered off on aimless tracks and he forgot who he had on the line. That first time an exasperated Sam had petulantly terminated the call. ~

Sam snatched up the phone and answered it quickly, without even glancing at the display, anxious not to wake Jess.

"Hello?" he hissed.

There was a pause before the reply came. "Hi, Sam." It was Dean.

Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Hi, Dean," he replied quietly. "Where are you right now?"

He heard Dean's familiar chuckle. "On a bus," Dean answered. "En route for Dallas."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "On the bus? So where's the Impala?"

He knew his brother would never ride the bus by choice.

"Dad took her," Dean explained, a little tersely. "They've been in Dallas for a week."

Well, right there was one cause of Dean's mood, Baby-deprivation.

Sam smiled to himself. "You and Dad have words, huh?"

~ Dean had called again, a couple weeks later, and in between the tipsy nonsense Sam had gathered that he had somehow gotten badly injured. John had left him to finish an ogre hunt alone. Sam couldn't put the phone down on his brother in that state. So he put up with Dean's crude rambling while he tried to search out exactly how hurt his brother had gotten himself. He didn't end the call until he knew Dean would be OK. ~

Dean sighed at the other end of the line. "Some," he allowed.

No wonder Dean was feeling tense. If John had dumped Dean and gone ahead in Dean's Baby, leaving him transportless, there had to have been some verbal fisticuffs. Dean knew his brother knew what that could be like. Hence the sympathy call.

"Dad is a jerk," Sam commented, understandingly.

"Yep," Dean agreed, then after a pause. "On occasion."

Sam scoffed. That was so his brother Dean. Never badmouth John. Not even Sam could get away with that. Dean was John's loyalist supporter, even when he was the one on the sharp end of their dad's temper.

There was a longish pause. Then Dean continued. "You in bed, Sam?"

Sam sighed. Here we go. "Yeah, I'm in bed," he answered.

"Uh-huh? What you wearing, Sam?" Dean asked.

"White cotton T-shirt and boxers," Sam supplied.

"Starch in those boxers, huh?" commented Dean. "C'mon, push up that shirt for me, why don't ya?"

"Dude! I'm not alone," Sam warned him. His older brother had picked his time for a booty call.

The line went silent for a moment. "The chick's asleep, right?" Dean asked, hopeful.

~ When further calls had followed, Sam soon realized that Dean only called him when something was wrong. Maybe he had had some big argument with John, or John had left him to cope alone and he had gotten hurt or had a close call. The close calls worried Sam most of all, so he did his best not to discourage Dean from phoning, no matter how much it seemed to always be some kind of retro-cybersex ramble on Dean's part. ~

Sam turned his head and glanced at his girlfriend, oblivious at his side, respiration slow and steady.

He exhaled silently. "Yeah, man," he said. "She's asleep."

"Yay! Then we're on," said Dean, cheer returning. "Get that T pulled up for me."

Sam fumbled carefully in the nightstand for his phone's Bluetooth earpiece, and stuck it in his ear.

Then he complied with the T-shirt. "OK."

"Now run your hand over those defined pecs of yours for me," Dean commanded. "Imagine my fingers on your skin, Sammy. Feel good?"

"Yeah, feels good." On a Greyhound somewhere mid-route for Dallas, Sam knew Dean was doing the same.

"Why don't you suck on your finger then circle it around that pink little left nipple," purred Dean. "Uh-huh, that's good, Sammy."

Sam closed his eyes and did as he was told. He pictured his brother getting into his zone out there on the highway. The interior of the bus would be darkened, so people could sleep, outside black except for the fleeting red flash of vanishing taillights.

Then he had a sudden thought.

"Dean? You're not sharing a goddamn coach seat with some old nun or little pigtailed kid, right?"

Dean chuckled throatily. "Don't you worry, Sam," he responded. "All alone here on the backseat. No more than ten people on the whole freakin' bus. Mostly asleep or in headphones. Not a problem. Not putting on a show here."

Sam relaxed again. "Good," he said. "So it's just you and me, man. That's good."

He massaged his nipple with his fingertip, feeling it tighten up into a hard nub, then he transferred his attentions to the other.

~ Dean only ever called his brother when he was liquored up enough to forget that he had sworn to never, ever speak to his runaway sibling again. When Sam had left John and Dean to run away to Stanford, the single worst fear he had had was that he wouldn't see them again. That something would take them from him before he had had a chance to make his peace. So Sam took what he could get. ~

"Both soldiers at attention, dude," he informed his brother.

"Hey, Sammy, did I tell you to run on ahead," Dean griped, affectionately. "Jeez, you'll be done before I'm half ready."

Sam scoffed. "You're so slow, slowpoke," he joshed.

"Got all night," Dean drawled warmly. "Can take our time. OK?"

"OK," Sam agreed. "Take it easy. That's fine."

Dean snickered down the phone line. "Yeah," he said. "Just you slip your big hand down inside those starchy white boxers, Sammy. You know where I'm headed."

Sam lay back and gently slid his hand under the waistband of his shorts, following the line of manly hair that traversed his belly and wound its way toward his crotch.

He could hear Dean's breathing starting to get a little more laboured.

"Hey," he whispered. "Now who's getting ahead, man?"

Dean laughed softly. "So you wanna wrap those long fingers around it, huh?" he hissed. "You wanna pull that sucker with me. Just the way I do. Just like it was me with my hand on you. You with your hand on me. Huh?"

Sam nodded and made an affirmative sound. "Yeah, Dean, yeah. Just like you say."

He tried to keep himself from moaning as he manipulated his member to the rhythm of Dean's panting.

Right then, Jess mumbled something in her sleep and rolled over, away from Sam. Sam stilled his movements for an aching heartbeat until she settled down again and then let out the breath he had been holding.

~ Maybe it was wicked and kind of wrong for two brothers to be exchanging flirtatious words, even when it was strictly hands-off. But Sam had vowed to himself that he would never put the phone down on Dean again. And he was quietly glad that, in his times of stress, Dean still automatically turned to his little brother for comfort. If acting as Dean's own private phone-sex go-to number meant that he kept in touch with his brother, then Sam could work with that. ~

"You hard yet?" asked Dean, breathlessly.

"Not yet," Sam murmured. "Gimme a second."

He jerked his manhood with a little more urgency, until he felt it start to stiffen up in his fist.

"Yeah, I'm hard. You too?" he whispered.

"As a freakin' rock, Sammy," Dean responded, gleefully. "OK. Now we're gonna do this together."

He began to count softly, rhythmically, as they jacked themselves off in perfect sync with each other. There was something right about it, like everything they used to do together. Hunted together. Fought together. In perfect time, perfect coordination, like a well-oiled machine. The harmony they had shared. The harmony they still shared. The harmony they would ALWAYS share, no matter how far apart life led them. That was what this was all about. Their synchrony. Their bond.

Sam gasped as he came, and he quivered when he heard Dean moan low at his end of the line.

"Damn it. That was so freakin' good," Dean drawled.

Sam chuckled. "Yes, sirree."

Dean yukked as he tucked himself back in his pants.

"Glad I called?" he asked happily.

Sam smiled. "Yeah, Dean," he agreed. "ALWAYS happy you call, bro."

Sam's cell display flickered as Dean terminated the call at his end. Sam grinned to himself. His big brother was safe and well, on some bus en route to Dallas, and Sam felt warm and happy.

~ This was their understanding. Dean could 'touch base' whenever he needed to, whenever drink made him sad enough that he needed to hear the sound of his brother's voice. And sometimes, Sam suspected, even when he was sober. But Sam didn't quibble. He allowed Dean to get away with that pretence. And they each got to prove to the other that he still had someone out there who belonged to him, someone who still loved him. ~

His brother was still alive.

The End

* * *

A/N: I heard the phrase 'touch base' and my muse took off.


End file.
